Harry Potter and the Plains of the Dead
by Avery52
Summary: Please only read this if you are finished with the fifth book, order of the Pheonix, for this is Harry's sixth year in Hogwarts.
1. Default Chapter

Harry Potter and the Plains of the Dead Year Six at Hogwarts  
  
There was an eerie black veil strung thoughtlessly from an arched doorway. It looked worn, spots of gray were replacing the faded spots of black. It was torn down the middle, as though something had attacked it, though despite the tear it nonetheless blocked the what was not to be known. It hung effortlessly, swaying in the twinge of blue light that surrounded it. Harry knew that he had to finally open it. Sirius would be waiting for him, he knew. As soon as he swung the black veil out of his way, Sirius would jump out with his bark-like laugh. He'd give Harry a hardy pat on the back, and maybe even apologize for keeping him waiting. He would give Harry a half-hearted hug and lead him back out the long passageway. Harry knew what he had to do but he was scared. His trembling hand reached towards the torn veil. Every bit of his body was twisted with nervousness as he groped for the veil and finally swung it open. The arched doorway was filled with a terrible blackness, but he could see well enough. Sirius' disembodied head lay on the stone floor. His black hair was twisted and matted around his bodiless neck. The neck was caked with dried blood and rotting skin so thin it was beginning to reveal parts of his skull. His eyes were blank and rolling into the back of his head...  
Harry woke up with a cold sweat, clutching his scar. Unlike usual, his scar did not hurt, it felt no pain at all. But Harry felt a different kind of pain. It wrenched in his heart as if someone was stabbing him with a sharp knife right through all his vital organs. He opened his eyes and pushed away his overgrown black hair. He could barely see without his glasses. It was difficult to even tell the distinction between the bed and the floor. But Harry felt no use for groping around his bed side table for his glasses. He had no need to see, he didn't want to see anything right now. He glanced at the blurry letters forming on his clock. 11:57. He did not want to turn sixteen. He was pacing about the floor now, a quick pace, he's feet banging sharply against the wooden floorboards of his room as he spun back and forth. In three minutes, no, two now, he would be sixteen. Sixteen! He did not want that. He never even wanted to be fifteen, or fourteen. He wished he could race back to his third Hogwarts year and stay there forever. He wished that seconds didn't happen so fast, why couldn't they take more time? No, of course not, each second brightly came, announcing its arrival, and then would disappear, drowning away as if it never happened. Harry wished he had the power to stop time, to grab the seconds and stop them from twisting away, but they just kept moving. The pain in Harry's heart worsened. He clenched his chest and could feel true tears welling in the bottom of his eyes. He couldn't keep from crying. He relaxed his clenched face and let light tears flow freely, streaming down his cheek. In only seconds he found himself sobbing into his hands. His body strewn across the floorboards in his room, his heart thumping steadily within his chest. Harry almost felt contempt for those who had kept him alive throughout the year. Had his life ended when Fawkes, the pheonix was singing sweetly to him, or when Voldemort could have killed him, a quick, painless death, he would not be suffering so now. Why did death seem so much more delightful that life at this point? Harry would rather have a bird singing softly in his ears as he drifted away from the world, than be stuck on the hard floor of his room, with pain in his heart, suffering the losses he had. The light from Harry's digital clock flickered, 11:59. Harry ran up and seized the clock with all his strength, ready to smash it against the wall, but smashing a clock would not stop time. It wouldn't stop him from a time that once again announced that he had lived through the year. How had he lived the year, he wondered. Sixteen years of tortured life. When would it end. He remembered being ten, counting down until he would turn eleven, when Hagrid came bursting through the door, sweeping away to something unexpected. Something that for the next six years would change Harry's life. Harry had not realized how much his life had changed until now, six years later, when he was counting down again. Wondering if he would be as lucky to countdown for his seventeenth birthday. "Ten.nine." but Harry had not noticed that the red numbers on his clock already read 12:00, which meant, to no joy of Harry's, that he had most likely spent the mark of his sixteenth year still alive, thinking about death.  
  
Harry's thoughts the night before about a peaceful death rather than a life of suffering were not the first. But these thoughts were his own, provoked by his own memories. The Dursley's had not tried once to treat Harry unfairly over the summer, he assumed they were frightened at the prospect of a wizard gang swooping down upon number 4, Privet Drive in the middle of the night. But because the Dursley's didn't know how to not treat him unfairly, they mostly just made no note of his presence whatsoever. They gave him three meals a day, slightly larger portions than before Harry realized, and left him to find things to do himself in the times in between. Harry would spend his free time in his room lying on his bed mulling the events of his fifth year in Hogwarts over and over in his head. These events included the Order of the Pheonix, O.W.L's, and even Proffesor Umbridge at times, but never what had happened past the day he dreamt of Sirius in the Department of Mysteries. His memories would stop abruptly at this point, a small flash of what happened there would echo in his brain, and then he would spend the rest of the day depressed, in a sort of sleeping state, thinking about death. He had contact with the wizarding world, he was forced to in fact. He wrote to Number 12, Grimmauld Place every three days, as he had been instructed, to ward off the Order from appearing on the Dursley's doorstep the next morning. He never left any detail in his letters, there was nothing to tell, he would scribble on a parchment that he was alright and the Dursley's were treating him fine. He could never put his emotions on paper. The dark sadness that ripped apart his stomach, the feeling of his happiness fading into oblivion, a shallow emptiness in his heart that tingled like an unknown emotion through his scar and out of his fingertips. Plunging through is stomach and fighting its way into his feet. Ron and Hermoine sent his birthday presents the next day, parcels with short, cheerful letters attached. They promised to rescue him as soon as possible. Bring him back to the Burrow where he could enjoy the rest of his summer. Enjoy was no longer a vocabulary word of Harry's. He felt there was no longer reason in the world for laughter. It was an injustice to those dead that you were laughing while they felt pain. Harry had considered many times finding his wand in his six year old trunk and whispering the illegal death curse with the tip of the wand pointed to his chest. In fact, there were only two major components that held him back from leading himself to a painless death. One was the sheer mystery that was beheld behind death. You could choose to be a ghost, and walk around without a purpose, a lifeless existence, or you could be brave and walk unto death. But what was death? Would you live in a heaven, watching over the living who walk beneath you? Or was it blackness, nothingness? This scared Harry, just the prospect of nothingess. Not your spirit slowly lifting to join those who had died before you, but an empty, black, space, forever. The second thing that held Harry back was the prophecy that Dumbledore had repeated to him days before he had left for the summer. "None can survive without the other."in the end, Harry was to be a villain or victim, and if he chose his own life, he would put the magical world at risk of Voldemort's wrath. Harry couldn't think anymore of his world and friends at risk. He leaned backwards onto his bed and risked closing eyes. For a moment, he thought the world of darkness between his eyes and the closed lids above was a safe place to be. No harsh dreams of Sirius' disembodied head, no questions of death twisting and yearning to be answered, no visions of Voldemort's scaly head, his eyes glowing madly, hungry for power..nothing. For a minute, Harry was safe. For a minute, the darkness was desired, and Harry might find the sleep he had lost every day since Sirius had died. But sure enough, it came. Creeping into his mind slowly from every direction, as though a sudden move could scare it away. An eerie veil, its only movement a soft swaying in the gentle breeze. Creeping slowly into the empty void of darkness that was his mind. The veil was longing to be swept aside, to reveal the mystery inside in which it was hiding. Harry resisted this time, knowing what was to be found, so the veil remained there. Almost screaming at Harry to carelessly throw it aside, as if there was much more mystery than Harry had seen already. 


	2. News

Harry had not tried to improve his image since the summer had began. He never felt like eating much and he seemed to have gotten skinnier by the minute. The loose skin which no longer had a purpose hung without restraint on his clearly visible rib cage. The shirts that Dudley Dursley had lent him were larger than usual. The "short" sleeves went passed his elbow and hung off his bony arms like robes while the rest went beyond his knees and hung effortlessly giving him the airy feeling that nothing was there to hide his chest from the world. He refused to leave the house, feeling to vulnerable in the muggle world, and had not had his hair cut for weeks, his already out of order black hair drooping in clumps past his ears. He hadn't even bothered to bathe. A distinct odor was now sensed every time Harry walked by, dirt was caking around his neck and eyes and under his fingernails. Even his glasses were slightly cracked from when Harry had almost stepped on them a week ago, they were marked by a tiny crack in the upper left hand corner, creeping like a spider web in every direction. He could tell they were also perched slightly crooked on his nose. Yet he didn't care. He didn't long to take the kind of refreshing showers the Dursley's took every morning, he didn't even long to be whisked away by Ron or Hermoine, or even Lupin. He only wished to by alone, or even with Sirius, but because that wasn't possible, the best he could do was to stay alone in a dark room, awaiting the inevitable It was later in the day, when the gray clouds were draping the suns golden rays in darkness when Hedwig arrived at Harry's closed window, carrying more mail than he had seen in his life. She carried from her feet three smaller envelopes. She also carried in her mouth one of the large, paper size envelopes, marked with a large red Hogwarts seal on the front. Harry opened his window and let the damp (it had been raining earlier) and exhausted Hedwig throw herself into Harry's room. Slowly, Harry extracted the envelopes from his owls mouth and laid her to rest. Tired yet curious, Harry first took the large one and ripped the wax seal from the top, continuing to anxiously open the letter. He pulled out a stiff piece of parchment, with fancy leaning letters written in recognizable top brand ink.  
  
Mr. Harry Potter  
  
Career Advisement and O.W.L results  
  
Transfiguration-Exceeds Expectations Potions-Poor Herbology-Outstanding Defense Against the Dark Arts-Outstanding Astrology-Poor Care of Magical Creatures-Outstanding Divination-Dreadful History of Magic-Poor Career Advisement: Determined by your test results, your ideal job would most likely be working in the Ministry of Magic. If you are still looking to be an Auror, as discussed in your Career Advisory Session, it is suggested that you shall improve your work in Potions. Your suggested N.E.W.T classes will be determined after sixth year. Thank you for your time and effort, Minerva Mconnagle Albus Dumbledore  
  
Harry stared at his results in slight disbelief. "Not bad, eh?" He said, turning to Hedwig, the only other living organism in his room. Staring at the stiff parchment again he forced a weak smile, proud of the small glimmer of hope of becoming an auror that was building in his stomach. With new found determination, Harry next ripped the top off one of the smaller envelopes and turned it upside down. A small piece of parchment fluttered out and landed gently on his bed. Harry turned it over and recognized Hermoine's writing.  
  
Harry,  
I've left my house to go stay with Ron at the Burrow. Lupin is staying with Ron, it will be a while before he will go back to Grimmauld. Mrs. And Mr. Weasley are trying to find a way to get you to the burrow before school starts. I hope the Muggles are treating you alright,  
Hermoine  
  
The second envelope was a relatively short letter from Lupin, addressed from the burrow.  
Harry,  
I'm staying with the Weasley's. Tonks and Moody have remained at Grimmauld. I hope the Muggles are treating you right. I hope to see you soon, Mr. Weasley is planning to rescue you from Privet drive soon. I received a copy of you O.W.L results. Good job! I commemorate your attempts to become an auror. I will hopefully see you soon.  
Lupin P.S.-I have been given rights as your new godfather.  
  
The last small envelope was bordered with various pictures of Ron's favorite quidditch team, the Chudley Cannons. Harry tore it open and slowly lay the pre-folded paper on his bed. It was slightly longer that the others and written after Hermoine and Lupin had already been at the burrow for a week.  
  
Harry,  
How is everything? Lupin and Hermoine have already been at our hose for a week, they told me they had already sent you letters about them staying here. How were your O.W.L's? I can't believe how well I did!! Hermoine got outstanding on practically everything. She's too predictable! I hope everything is going alright, dad sais that it will be alright to come get you in another week. Most likely, Fred and George can apparate and turn something in your room into a portkey. Business is booming for them, they offer there undying gratitude for what you did for them. Dad sais they have another girl defense against the dark arts teacher to replace umbridge, I hope she's not as bad! We're going to be needing a new quidditch captain, and its all up to you now mate! We're missing a lot of people from the team, and I'd really like to resign. See you soon, mate. Fred and George will be here in about a week.  
Ron  
  
Harry couldn't help but grin at Ron's letter. It reminded him more of the tie and obligation he had to the wizarding world. And an almost excitement of being back on his broom. It felt as though he had been numb since summer had begun, and feeling was beginning to creep back into him. He suddenly could feel the dirt that was growing on him, the weakness that had been possessing him, and a horrible eruption of hunger that had been growing in his stomach. He knew that his Aunt and Uncle were in the kitchen enjoying desert as the day drew to a close, and for once, he thought he might join them.  
As he reached the kitchen, the almost joyful feeling he felt was drained again. The scrumptious desert that Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia had been enjoying was finished and they forced him to clean up as soon as he had showed his face downstairs. Not willing to argue, Harry scooped up the rather large empty ice cream bowls and dropped them in the sink. He was half-hearing the news coming from the TV but most of the sound was covered with the sound of the rushing faucet water as he dropped globs of dish soap onto the dirty bowls and scraped at them with his sponge. He was half way through the thorough cleaning of the second bowl when something on the news made him drop the bowl back into the sink, splattering him with dishwater and clashing with the other pots and dishes already in the sink.  
"Delores Umbridge, a high government official, has mistakenly become in contact with a letter about the whereabouts of alleged murderer, Sirius Black. She was happy to surrender the letter to us, although we are still unsure of a few code words that was used in the letter. It reads as follows. 'To whom it may concern at Azkaban, I have gained the knowledge, as I was there when it happened, that your convicted felon, Sirius Black, is dead. I assure you of this fact and hope that you will stop telling the muggle ministry such lies of his whereabouts and you will discontinue your search. Thank you, Remus Lupin.' Government officials and scientists are attempting to gain knowledge of the meaning of certain words such as 'azkaban' and 'muggle.' We also hope to find Lupin for further questioning. If you have any knowledge as to the whereabouts of either Black or Lupin please contact us by phone at 555-6342. Thank you."  
Harry felt the pit of his stomach drop to the floor. Umbridge was still at large, now contacting even the muggles to gang against Harry. Harry's legs gave out, leaving him on the Dursley's linoleum kitchen floor, with a face as white as snow. Uncle Vernon appeared on top of him in an instant, his six chins wobbling back and forth. "What is it? Do you know anything about this boy?" Harry's uncle asked harshly. "Well?"  
"No, no." Harry muttered as he slowly found his balance and began to walk upstairs, not even sure of where he was going. Umbridge had intercepted Lupin's letter of information to Azkaban and had given it willingly to the Muggle government. Harry's stomach continued to drop, leaving an empty, nervous space. Harry wasn't sure what to do or say. He wasn't sure whether or not the Order was even safe, it seemed no teams of people could work against Voldemort now. It didn't matter what the sorting hat or Dumbledore could say about unity with one another, it seemed as though it was every wizard, witch, or muggle for themselves. 


End file.
